Panty Hose Trick and North City Farmer's Market

The garden is growing!  3 of the 16 tomato plants were tipped over when I visited our garden on June 5 (about a month after we first planted).  We have some plastic poles, wooded poles, and wire towers we are using to prop up the plants.  However, I realized we need to somehow anchor the plants to the poles somehow, so I at first thought string would be the way to go.  I talked to my mom, and she learned from our former next door neighbors and wonderful vegetable gardeners, Bea and Pat, that pantyhose worked great because they are flexible and provide some "give" as the plants grow and expand.  I own exactly zero pairs of pantyhose, so I called Sarah, who has worked in corporate America for quite a long time, and sure enough, she has more pairs than she knows what to do with.  So the next step is tying up our plants.    There are arleady tons of yellow flowers and small green tomatoes growing!  Yummy.  All the other plants are growing wonderfully too.  The basil is expanding quickly.  I'm most excited for onions.  I've been cooking so much lately, and every recipe calls for an onion; can't wait to use one from my own garden! 

I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's a great book; I don't know if I'll ever be at the point where every single thing I cook is either grown in my own backyard or in a place where I know the growers (local), but I'm slowly moving that way!  On Saturday morning, Seamus and I visited the North City Farmer's Market.  It's a few blocks right by Crown Candy, at 14th and Market.  It was 100 degrees plus, but other than that, very fun.  Live music playing, about 20 or so vendors, and just a fun atmosphere.  I bought collard greens, radishes, peas, fresh bread, and strawberries.  Cooked everything that night and ate some delicious food, and used some to make dishes for a little pool party the next day.  I'm going to try to go to that market every week; it was wonderful! 

Garlic Addition

After Sarah and I planted the garden on May 1, we excitedly shared our venture with everyone we talked to.  We received similar responses: "You planted HOW MANY tomato plants? 16?"  Apparently that's a lot.  We've been told 1 or 2 tomato plants can yield hundreds of tomatoes, so we're looking at thousands.  To tell you the truth, I am not worried...Sarah knows everyone on the planet (well so do I :) ), so I think there will be no shortage of tomato lovers with whom to share the products of our hard work.  Sarah still plans to put some herbs in a pot, and I still planned to plant garlic.  I learned that you plant the individual cloves, not the whole bulb.  In the picture, where you see the big mound of dirt freshly dug on the left of the garden, is where I planted 8 garlic cloves.  I'm very, very excited to have garlic later this year since I use lots of it in my cooking!  Gardening was particularly peaceful this day since Seamus was sleeping when we got out the car and happily napped the entire time I planted!  What a delightful baby.  Oh, this has nothing do do with gardening, but we went to the zoo with Meaghan on May 11 when it was 95 degrees, and this picture is too cute for me not to post. 

Our plants are growing!  I don't know my onion lingo, but something is already sprouting out of the ground where we planted the bulbs pretty deep ( I think 4-6").  The tomato plants are getting taller.  It continues to rain often in St. Louis, so hopefully that is keeping Nick and Sarah's watering workload low. 

Sunday Planting Day

Seamus and I met Sarah at her house at noon on Sunday, the plan being to first shop for our plants, till the soil/clay :), get soil from Carondelet Park with Sarah's brother, Mark's, help, then plant.  As usual, the forecast showed that rain was very likely, so we weren't sure how much we'd get done.  We consulted a great book of Sarah's, Square Foot Gardening, and made our list of vegetables to get at the store.  We left Seamus with Nick to watch NBA all day. 

We went to Home Depot, and while Sarah stood in line to rent a tiller, I got the plants: heirloom tomatoes and a few other tomato varieties (16 total), 16 basil plants, 3 types of onions, garlic, and 4 peppers (orange, jalapeno, red, and yellow).  

We got home and started tilling the garden area.  We didn't know how deep to go or really what we were doing, but we dove in and tried it.  We met Mark Farmer in the rain at Carondelet Park and filled 4 huge trash containers with soil/compost.  It was raining pretty hard on us!  Mark brought his adorable 2 month old puppy, Cocoa (Sarah insists Mark named her after a designer). 

When we returned to Sarah's, Mark tilled the 4'x12' garden area like it was nothing!  We combined all the Carondelet soil with what was already in the ground, and finally we were ready to plant!  The rain wasn't so bad by then.  Sarah and I then dug in and planted our vegetables. Here it is:

10 tomato plants closest to the fence,  the basil  on the right next to the shed, the other 6 tomato plants to the left of the basil, then a row of onions (purple, white, and yellow), and the 4 peppers in the front on the right.  We still have to plant the garlic; I found out it's better to plant the individual cloves, not the whole bulb like I did Sunday :) 

I love our garden!!  Can't wait to watch it grow and produce.  Yum.

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/dining/restaurants/off-the-menu/youtube_2b324c82-7027-11e0-ab1c-0019bb30f31a.html

Garden Inspiration

I made a solo journey to Vietnam in March/April 2008.  It was an incredible journey; I filled an entire notebook in those three weeks.  The way I felt at the end of my trip and when I returned to the U.S. is a big reason I want to grow my own food.  I am a runner and had completed three marathons at the start of this trip, but I did not run or do any type of traditional exercise while I was in Asia.  Yet I felt healthier than I have ever felt in my life at the end of the trip.  Many friends and colleagues over the years have talked about "cleanse" programs and diets that are designed to clear the body of toxins. With my background as a registered dietitian, I was always skeptical of these programs for a variety of reasons.  However, the best way I can describe the way I felt after experiencing Vietnamese cuisine was cleansed!  I realized everything I ate in this amazing country was local, fresh, and organic. There was no other option but fresh, colorful, delicious food!  Though I read recently in Kelly Brownell's Foodfight that obesity is on the rise everywhere, including Vietnam, I definitely did not see any obese people.  We live in a toxic food culture here where we have to make an effort to eat healthy; in Vietnam, you would have to make a concerted effort to NOT eat healthy!  Maybe we can move back to that type of culture, one garden at a time.

So, Vietnam is a huge inspiration, along with Michael Pollan books and the countless food documentaries I've seen, SLU classes about food.  A huge inspiration, of course, is that I have a 5-month old son, Seamus, who will be starting to eat delicious table food in less than a month, and I want him to know where his food comes from!

Plans at Kayak's

April 23,  2011

Sarah called me last week and asked if I was interested in helping her start a garden at her house in Dogtown.  I said of course!!  Our plan was to dive in on Saturday, even though we had no idea what we were doing.  I got an early birthday present from Mike (The City Homesteader) and a book called The Urban Homestead at the library (good old slpl.org), and I had read bits and pieces, but we figured we would just learn on the job.  However, St. Louis received the biggest tornado/storm in over 40 years on Friday night, and Sarah woke up to a "mudbath" Saturday morning!  We decided to brainstorm and plan our garden instead. Seamus, Sarah, and I went to the wonderful Kayak's coffee by Wash U and spent a few hours sipping iced coffee, sketching out plans, creating our veggie wish list, and watching instructional youtube videos.  Our favorite by far was "Diva Dan." Pretty sure he's canadian.  We read in a few different places that beginner gardeners should start small, like a 2-4' by 8-10' garden, so we don't become overwhelmed.  We'll see how big it is after we start the dirty work.  Here's my original wish list of veggies to plant:
cherry & heirloom tomatoes, lettuce (arugula especially, yum), brussel sprouts, carrots, chives, garlic, onion, peas, and spinach.  Herbs: basil, dill, cilantro, parseley, rosemary, and thyme.  We plan to get compost from my sister, Lynn Fingerhut, which she has accumulated over the past few years, and to get free soil from Carondelet Park (thank you Gateway Greening for the info!).  My brother, Mark Fingerhut, offered some fencing to put around the garden to keep out critters.  In our internet search, we discovered that certain veggies/herbs grow well together ("companion planting"), so after a little research, we came up with a rough blueprint for our garden.  Here it is:

We'll have 3 sections behind Sarah's shed.  The first will have tomatoes and basil, the second, tomatoes, peppers, and garlic, and the third, carrots, lettuce, and onions.  Sarah wants to grow sunflowers next to the parking spot, and we want to do herbs in various places. 

The plan is to start digging and planting next Sunday, May 1!